WE cannot help but treat the ongoing CoViD 19 pandemic as one, if not an entire, subject of our column every day. Whatever development the pandemic unfolds on a day-to-day basis it’s too hard to ignore.
In Mindanao alone, the figure of new active cases is rising daily even if it is admitted that the number of those who are healed is rising as well. In fact, lately, Cagayan de Oro City was placed under the Enhanced Community Quarantine category. Meaning the infection, especially with the CoViD Delta variant,has risen exponentially. The number of afflicted persons is reaching a new high that the Department of Health in the Northern Mindanao region had to declare a Code Red on the availability of hospital facilities.
Nonetheless the city mayor of Cagayan de Oro is taking the right moveby rallying his people not to panic. And the mayor has to, because once he shows any semblance of defeatism the morale of his people will definitely go down and it would be very difficult to revitalize it so the people will be much more prodded to fight the pandemic in order to survive.
Meanwhile, in Davao City it seems lady mayor Inday Sara Duterte-Carpio has learned a lesson from an immediate past where there was a sudden surge of new cases and there were attempts to conceal the phenomenon from the public. Of course it was for a good purpose. That is for the Davaoeno public not to be led into reacting to certain alarming situations. These days’ threat of a new surge is taken by the mayor with extreme caution and she is now in the thick of preparation to obviate the surge even before it can rear its ugly head in the city.
Now Mayor Inday is making several steps ahead of the potential surge. She is reported to have ordered for an inventory of hospital beds that can be used should such surge finally come or any sign thereof shows. The mayor is also tracking down the whereabouts and availability of hospital supplies like oxygen and its container tanks. She is also having the existing quarantine and isolation facilities checked as to the level of its occupancy. We are hoping too, that the mayor would have the availability of ambulance service vehicles monitored. These are important support components of any effective response to emergencies, including transport of CoViD patients.
We believe that it is important for the mayor to know of the situation of ambulance service in Davao City. On the other hand, we also see the importance of the availability of hospital beds because it is hard to imagine if a similar situation in the hospitals in Kalibo, Aklan will happen in Davao City. We are certain that Mayor Inday is aware of the population level of her city to be much more than the population of the City of Kalibo, or even the entire Aklan Province.
And how many public crematoriums does Davao City have? From what we know we have only one although there is another one privately operated.
Of course we are not praying for this morbid scenario to happen in our city as a result of any surge of cases. Far from it; but we have to write about the possibility because the city mayor is undertaking some pre-emptive measures to arrest any possible surge of new and much more critical Delta variant cases of CoViD infection. As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is much better than a pound of cure.” We supposed no one will argue with that.
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Former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s pronouncements in reaction to VP Leni’s reported talking with some other known Presidential and Vice Presidential aspirants in the coming May 2022 elections are a foreboding of things to come should the Vice President pursue her consultation supposedly to be able to come up with only one opposition bet.
Actually, Trillanes IV is only making his share in putting flesh to the adage that “history tends to repeat itself. Wasn’t Trillanes himself doing a Robredo when he constantly visited Davao City ptior to the May 2016 national elections to discuss with then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte his intention to tandem with the former should the latter decide to run for President? Trillanes was actually openly courting for the then mayor’s agreement. But politics has its way of getting things happen. Duterte instead selected Alan Peter Cayetano as his tandem. And that started what could be former Senator Trillanes’ insatiable desire to get back at the President to the point of inventing lies so the President can be tried by the International Criminal Court.
With this as backgrounder VP Leni indeed should be doubly careful with her succeeding moves. Otherwise she can be a Duterte to Trillanes’ eyes even before the election is conducted. So VP Leni, better beware!
